“Two mid-sized cities collide on a single street. Waterloo is who you want to be, and Kitchener is who you fear you really are.”

Through (ongoing) interviews, archival research and her own origin stories, Haley has collected too many tales from her hometown — a place she’s always been embarrassed by but now wishes she wasn’t. Each story ends at a fork in the road. You decide where we go.

14 years since Haley left her hometown and never went back, Kitchener-Waterloo is a never-the-same-twice solo performance that confronts the place she's from through a chance series of ugly-yet-loveable hometown portraits.

Part choose your own adventure, part personal divulgence, part true-crime indulgence, part living room pretzel nosh & gossip session: Kitchener + Waterloo is a spontaneous, funny, shocking, tender take-down-send-up meditation on home, hometowns, homecomings and who gets to live where.

This show is a rallying cry for all those who secretly battle with the place they are from, who recoil at the thought of having to go back, who want reconcile with their roots... who had to leave in order to feel at home.

K+W premiered in London in 2017, at Camden People's Theatre, co-produced with Theaterdiscounter, Berlin.

Artistic Endorsement (no reviews yet!)

"Kitchener + Waterloo is a thoughtful, funny and tender contemplation of home, belonging and place. Haley’s got a real skill at establishing intimacy with an audience - albeit an intimacy that's a little too sly to take entirely on trust. She uses it to unfold a highly involving suite of stories about her hometown, which together interrogate the push and pull that attracts us to and repels us from the places we grew up.” — Brian Logan, Artistic Director, Camden People’s Theatre

“Kitchener + Waterloo is a piece that showcases Haley’s incredible talent as a performer and writer. She curls her hair, she chats with the audience - one moment she goes dark and the next moment she’s handing out pretzels. I can’t wait to see where this show goes next. KW has been unbound from Ontario and seems poised to deliver its message of nostalgia/sadness/repression/mundanity/danger/pretzels throughout the world.” — Deborah Pearson, Co-Artistic Director, Forest Fringe

Haley McGee has such a unique voice as a writer and performer that it’s difficult not to fall in love with her work. Kitchener + Waterloo transports you to the twin cities of her childhood in Canada in such an inclusive way it rang bells of my own little valley in South Wales.” — Richard Corgan, Artistic Director, Table 21 Productions